The 50 Best ‘Saturday Night Live’ Characters of All Time

The skeeviest of lotharios, played by regular guest Christopher Walken, leering into the camera to address the viewer. Or undress the viewer, purring, “Forgive me if my hungry eyes feast on the banquet of your sumptuous decolletage.” Based on a Fifties TV series, the Continental was a highlight whenever Walken hosted, offering a glass of Champagne, or “sham-pan-ya.” Possibly the creepiest dude Walken ever played.Best line: “The sham-pan-ya you have thrown in my face stings my eyes. You are a fiery vixen.”

Open your eyes, people! Hunger, racism, small businesses — it’s like, maybe DON’T?” Cecily Strong created a self-absorbed party-girl drama queen most of us can relate to — probably because there’s a little bit of her in all of us. The Girl You Wish You Hadn’t Started a Conversation With at a Party spouts incoherent rants like “Why can’t Secret Santa just be openly gay?” or “People who are orphans are twice as likely to not have parents,” while waving to friends, digging in her purse, and looking at her phone.Best line: “Aaah-chooo! Oh, sorry, Seth — I must be allergic to indifference.”

A roundtable of Chicago dudes in matching walrus mustaches and sunglasses, raising their beer mugs in praise of Da Bears, Da Bulls, and especially Mike Ditka. Robert Smigel, Chris Farley, Mike Myers, and George Wendt summed up the devout passion of sports fans, gorging on bratwurst and pork chops while fighting the occasional heart attack. Beth Cahill was always welcome as Bill’s daughter Denise Swerski, Miss South Side of Chicago. Their authentically nasal accents were rare on network TV at the time. The Superfans grew so beloved they began appearing in person as a regular part of Bulls victory celebrations.Best line: “What’s God’s role in all this? Obviously, he’s rooting for Da Bears.”

Dan Aykroyd got the idea for the Coneheads on a trip to Easter Island with John Belushi, marveling at the Moai statues of giant heads.  Aykroyd, Jane Curtin, and Laraine Newman were the Coneheads, a family of aliens from the planet Remulak, hiding out in suburban Middle America, trying to fit in as ordinary people. If anyone raised an eyebrow at their odd habits or robotic speech, the Coneheads just claimed they were from France. They really killed it on Family Feud.Best line: “Good morning, parental units.”

Will Ferrell’s cowbell king, rocking in the studio with Blue Oyster Cult and performing the hell out of “(Don’t Fear) The Reaper.” The “More Cowbell” sketch was all Ferrell needed to make Gene an instant folk hero — the way his shirt ascends to expose his jiggling paunch is true mastery. Bonus points for not trying to milk Gene Frenkle into a recurring bit — although when Ferrell hosted SNL in 2005, Gene came out to jam with musical guests Queens of the Stone Age. He really knew how to explore the studio space.Best line: “If Bruce Dickinson wants more cowbell, we should probably give him more cowbell!”

Tom Hanks introduced this character in October 2016, just in time for Halloween, but David S. Pumpkins became such a hit that he’s never gone away. The Halloween mascot was profoundly creepazoidal in his black-and-white pumpkin suit, dancing between two skeletons. Hanks thought the character might be too freaky for him at first, but he earned an Emmy nomination for this role—he even got his own animated David S. Pumpkins Halloween Special. Any questions?Best line: “I’m David Pumpkins, and I’m gonna scare the hell out of you.”

Kristen Wiig is the woman of a thousand faces, but her most enduringly brilliant character is Mindy, a marvelously emphathetic portrait of an over-the-hill Broadway diva. She’s a regular guest on the Seventies game show Secret Word, except she’d rather gush about her triumphs in productions like Juicy Boots of 1961 and “the unnecessary revival of the play The Incoherence of Miss Tiffany.” Like so many Wiig characters, she’s totally delusional, yet in a way that makes you root for her.Best line: “Bob Fosse said the same thing to me in the smash failure Wigwam Suzy and the Corn Maize Crew, the story of a Native American girl who slept her way up to a two-room teepee.”

Adam Sandler’s prima donna, wearing a tux to sing mock arias about the news events of the day, from John Wayne Bobbit (“donde es schlongo?”) to Pearl Jam (“Nirvana kissa my assa”), occasionally blubbering into his handkerchief. Operaman was a key figure in SNL’s early-Nineties renaissance. And quite possibly the finest use of Sandler’s musical skills.Best line: “La chiefa policia, no dispatcha gendarme, morono, no respondo, no excusa, bagga doucha!”

Kate McKinnon had so many unforgettable moments, but she knocked it out of the park with the chain-smoking Colleen Rafferty, describing her alien abduction experiences. She has a long history of close encounters with extraterrestrials, but they always seem to involve her nicknames for her nether regions, such as “my cooter and my tooter,” “my grassy knoll and my gassy hole,” or “my baby tunnel and my gravy funnel.”Best line: “I land ass on a pool raft with my pink pocket and my stink rocket on full display.”

Nobody could top Phil Hartman when it comes to slick-talking con men in suits. As the Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer, he now seems like a template for the Republicans of the 21st century.Best line: “I’m just a caveman. I fell on some ice and later got thawed out by scientists. But there is one thing I do know. We must do everything in our power to lower the capital gains tax. Thank you!”

Chris Rock didn’t get much airtime in his early SNL run, but he killed every time he fought his way onto the show, and he really made his mark with Nat X, the dashiki-rocking militant host of The Dark Side. He’s the man so Black he goes to funerals naked, so Black they counted him four times in the Million Man March. Nat rails against the Man and institutions like chess, “a game that for some racist reason cannot start unless the white piece moves first.” He always counts down his Top 5 list—because the Man’s afraid to let him have a Top 10.Best line: “February is Black History Month—isn’t that nice? The Man gives us February because it’s the shortest month of the year. It’s also the coldest month of the year, just in case we wanted to have a parade.”

The ultimate explosion of John Belushi’s anarchic energy—he waves his samurai sword, he grunts, he screams, he chops up everything in sight. The Samurai appears in many different guises—a deli owner, a stockbroker, a psychiatrist, a mob hit man. And he hits the dance floor in “Samurai Night Fever,” where his brother gets played by O.J. Simpson. (Oh, those innocent Seventies.) Belushi used a real sword, resulting in actual bloodshed. One night he accidentally slashed host Buck Henry’s forehead open with his katana sword, live on the air. For the rest of the show, the cast wore Band-Aids on their foreheads.Best line: “Yeeeeh-aaaaiiiigh!”

Linda Richman was all America’s Jewish mother, hosting Coffee Talk to discuss Barbra Streisand, or anything else that makes her verklempt. No big whoop. Mike Myers based this fabulous yenta on his real-life mother-in-law, making her so famous that she wrote her own Nineties self-help book. Few SNL characters have ever been so quotable, with her New York accent and Yiddish asides (“Talk amongst yourselves!”) That episode where Linda’s on the couch with Madonna and Rosanne Barr, raving about Barbra—and then Barbra herself shows up? SNL’s all-time best “sneaker upper” gag.Best line: “She has legs to die for. They’re like buttah! The left one is salted, and the right one is courtesy of Land O’ Lakes.”

Steve Martin and Dan Aykroyd bonded as the Festrunk brothers, two Czech immigrants ready to party it up in their new American bachelor pad, because they were two wild and crazy guys. Yortuk and Georg were dressed for the Seventies singles bars, with gold chains, jaunty caps, and unbuttoned shirts, on the prowl for “swinging foxes.” But they kept their boyish charm, thanks to writer Marilyn Suzanne Miller. Martin became the first regular guest with his own recurring star character, as he and Aykroyd did their wiggly walk in perfect sync.Best line: “Bring on the foxes!”

Eddie Murphy loved to root around in the archives of long-forgotten trash TV to find the raw material for brand new characters. He took Gumby from an old 1950s kiddie series, but he didn’t imitate the original. Instead of a lovable claymation creature, this Gumby was a cranky, cigar-chomping, potty-mouthed show-biz hack, grown old and bitter. Murphy was barely out of his teens, but already fascinated by the down side of the dirty business of dreams.Best line: “I’m Gumby, dammit!”

Another brilliant Mike Myers creation: the black-clad German host of Sprockets, inviting his guests to touch his monkey as he raves about Berlin art-scene highlights like “Scabs on Canvas” and the Wall of Unhappiness. Dieter always ends by declaring, “This is the time on Sprockets when we dance!” In one segment, he interviews Dana Carvey’s Jimmy Stewart about his book of poetry, confessing, “That poem pulls down my pants and taunts me.” Like everything else Myers did on SNL, Dieter got imitated to death, but the original can’t be topped—his impact, as Dieter would say, was like a cultural Chernobyl.Best line: “Your presence intimidates me to the point of humiliation. Would you care to strike me?”

The host of “Daily Affirmations,” a caring nurturer and a member of several 12-step programs—but not a licensed therapist. Al Franken dispensed wisdom like “compare and despair” or “denial ain’t just a river in Egypt,” in a bold crusade against stinking thinking. In his most classic moment, he gives Michael Jordan (“I’ll call him Michael J. to preserve his anonymity”) a pep talk on self-esteem. How surreal to see MJ look into the mirror and say and say along with Stuart, “I don’t have to dribble the ball fast, or throw the ball into the basket.”Best line: “I’m good enough, I’m smart enough, and doggone it—people like me!”

The velvet song stylings of Bill Murray. For all his schmaltz, Murray put real heart and soul into this crooner — no matter how miserable the dump where he’s singing, he wants to win the audience’s love, one rendition of the Star Wars theme at a time.Best line: “Welcome to the Powder Room, everybody up here at beautiful Meatloaf Mountain. I’m Nick Winters and I’m here to entertain you. So sit back, have a hot buttered rum and let it happen.”

Chris Farley had a hundred different moves for hitching up his pants, and he got to use them all as Matt Foley, the maniacal motivational speaker who rants, “I am 35 years old, I am divorced, and I live in a van down by the river!” Farley and Bob Odenkirk created him in the Second City troupe, but he was an instant hit on SNL, appearing 8 times. The first time he showed up in 1993, he terrorized David Spade and Christina Applegate, warning that they might end up like him if they keep on rollin’ doobies. As Linda Richman might say: Neither motivational nor a speaker? Discuss!Best line: “Well, la-de-freakin’-da!”

Dan Aykroyd always specialized in two-bit American sleazebags, from the Bass-O-Matic salesman to Richard Nixon. But toy tycoon Irving Mainway is the archetypal Aykroyd hustler, and the ultimate showcase for his genius. In the early seasons of SNL, Mainway kept showing up on Consumer Probe to defend his horribly dangerous children’s toys, including “Bag O’ Glass,” “Teddy Chainsaw Bear,” “Mr. Skin Grafter,” and “General Trahn’s Secret Police Confession Kit.” But he refused to admit there was anything unsafe about Mainway Toys goodies like the Pretty Peggy Ear-Piercing Set. He sold Halloween costumes like “Johnny Human Torch”—a pile of oily rags and a lighter. He also ran the amusement park Kiddie Funworld, featuring rides like the Ice Palace (a bunch of abandoned refrigerators) and the Tunnel of Noxious Gases.Best line: “Look, we put a label on every bag that says, ‘Kid! Be careful—broken glass!’ I mean, we sell a lot of products in the Bag O’ line, like Bag O’ Glass, Bag O’ Nails, Bag O’ Bugs, Bag O’ Vipers, Bag O’ Sulfuric Acid.” 

Rachel Dratch’s buzzkill goddess travels everywhere from Disney World to Las Vegas, but she always brings that sad trombone music with her. A birthday party, a wedding, a bachelorette party—you can always count on Debbie Downer to ruin the fun by bringing up feline AIDS (“it’s the number one killer of domestic cats!”) or the latest earthquakes.Best line: “By the way, it’s official—they’ve located my birth mother. Deceased.”

Can you say “scum bucket,” boys and girls? Mr. Robinson was no mere parody of Mr. Rogers—Eddie Murphy created a whole new character, a criminal-minded charmer with a streak of rage lurking behind a sweet smile for the kiddies out there, in his battle against Mr. Landlord. Mr. Robinson was the perfect vehicle for Murphy’s live-wire intensity, making him stand out from everything and everyone around him, especially in the disastrous reboot era after Lorne and the original cast left. But as soon as Murphy introduced Mr. Robinson in October 1981, he blew the rest of the show right off the screen.Best line: “You know where drums come from? Africa! You know where these drums come from? Smokey Robinson was at the Apollo Theater and left his van open.”

Mike Myers created the all-American party-commando hero. Wayne might be just a suburban metal kid hosting a public-access cable show in his mom’s basement, “Wayne’s World.” But he’s a rock star in his dreams. With him, as always, Dana Carvey as his loyal sidekick Garth. They were SNL at its best—the warmest, funniest, realest friendship in the show’s history, whether making out with Madonna or debating the future of socialism with Aerosmith. Coolest SNL spin-off movie ever, too. Party on, Wayne. Party on, Garth. Best line: “Garth, get it together, man. Because if you hurl, and I catch a whiff of it, I’m gonna spew. And if I blow chunks, chances are someone else is gonna honk, all right? And that’s gonna set off a peristaltic chain reaction, all right?”

Oh Stefon—more fun than a date with Tranderson Cooper. Bill Hader created an SNL legend with Stefon, the dazed Chelsea club kid who raves about the latest parties, dropping names like Gaye Dunaway, Blowjay Simpson, or “lazily named drag queen Melvin in a Dress.” As Hader told Rolling Stone, he based Stefon on the zonked-out party monsters he saw on the L train every Sunday morning on his way home to Brooklyn after SNL cast parties. His friend John Mulaney famously loved to surprise him with new jokes on the cue cards, trying to make Hader crack up on the air. (It usually worked.) But Stefon is beloved for his unkillable child-like enthusiasm. No matter what kind of hellhole he’s in, Stefon always believes this party has everything. An inspiration to us all.Best line: “This place has everything: geeks, sherpas, a Jamaican nurse wearing a shower cap, room after room of broken mirrors. Look over there—is that Mick Jagger? No! It’s a fat kid on a Slip & Slide. His knees look like biscuits and he’s ready to party!”